The Portrait of Doreene Gray (10 page)

“I'm here with
Tripping
magazine. We cover destinations of paranormal interest, and I wonder if you've heard any stories of that nature, about this area. You know, sea monsters, haunted lighthouses—that kind of thing.”

“I'm pretty sure all lighthouses are haunted,” Sissy said. “It comes with the territory.”

Daniel chipped in. “You mean the territory of living alone for months on end and drinking a fair amount?”

She laughed. “That's the one. Although I think most lighthouses are completely automated now, so the ghosts are on their own.”

“How about ghost ships?” Paul asked. “Are you interested in those?”

“Absolutely.” Michael reached for his digital recorder and pocket notebook.

“Are you thinking of the S.S.
Valencia
?” Sissy asked Paul.

He nodded. “You tell it.”

Michael set his recorder on the table and leaned forward expectantly.

“It was January of 1906,” Sissy said. “The S.S.
Valencia
was an iron-hulled passenger steamer traveling from San Francisco to Seattle. The weather was clear when she set off, but as she passed Cape Mendocino, she found herself in the grip of strong winds and currents, with very little visibility. Unable to see land, the navigator passed the entrance to the Strait of San Juan de Fuca. Shortly before midnight, the S.S.
Valencia
struck a reef on the coast of Vancouver Island.”

Paul broke in. “You see, when you get to the coast, you're in an area that's called the Graveyard of the Pacific, because it's so dangerous.”

Michael looked up from making a note. “This isn't the coast?”

“No, this is the Sound.”

Sissy went on. “The captain of the
Valencia
ordered the ship reversed, and when it did, the crew saw water pouring into the ship, which had only a single hull. So they ran it aground again.”

“Why would they do that?” Michael interrupted.

“If it was stuck on the reef, it couldn't sink,” Paul explained.

Sissy continued. “Only about a hundred and fifty feet separated the
Valencia
from shore, but the waves were so great that when passengers came on deck to see what was happening, many of them were washed overboard. The crew panicked, and six of the seven lifeboats they launched were lost almost immediately, along with their passengers. On the ship, husbands lashed their wives to the rigging, above the waves, where the women held their children and hoped for rescue.”

Michael realized that his hand was sweating on his pen, and loosened his grip.

“By morning,” Sissy continued, “four ships had tried to help the
Valencia,
but none of them could get close. The
Valencia
's remaining crew launched the last two lifeboats, but most of the passengers chose to remain on board, thinking they would be rescued. Instead, the ship began to break up, and waves washed the
Valencia
off the rocks, drowning all the remaining passengers. The last view many of the survivors had of the ship was of the women, still tied to the rigging, singing ‘Nearer My God to Thee.' A hundred and thirty-six passengers died, including all the women and children. Thirty-seven men survived.”

As she fell silent, Michael heard the lapping of waves on the hull, and the laughter of nearby sailors.

“What a terrible tragedy,” he said, shaking his head.

She raised a finger. “That's not the end of the story. Sailors began seeing a ghostly steamship off the coast of Vancouver Island, and twenty-seven years after that shipwreck, an empty lifeboat was found floating in Barkley Sound. Its nameplate showed that it belonged to the S.S.
Valencia.
”

Michael shook his head. “Incredible. These days, of course, the passengers' families would sue the company.”

“Oh, the government launched an investigation,” Paul said. “President Teddy Roosevelt even got involved, but it was determined that even though the crew hadn't carried out lifeboat drills, they weren't particularly at fault. The S.S.
Valencia
mostly had a lot of bad luck.”

Michael nodded. “What does ‘S.S.' stand for, anyway?”

“In this case,
sunken ship,
” Sissy said.

Daniel laughed. “It stands for
steamship.
”

Michael smiled. “Has anyone here had otherworldly experiences while sailing?”

“I had a close encounter with tequila that was pretty otherworldly,” Daniel said. “Does that count?”

“That depends,” Michael said. “Did you throw up anything you don't remember eating or drinking?” Over their laughter, he asked, “Sissy, can I have your full name and some way to contact you?”

“Sure. “Penelope Thacker.” She spelled out an e-mail address while he wrote.

Michael wrote it in his notebook. “Why are you called
Sissy,
out of curiosity?”

“That's by way of being an ironic nickname,” Paul said. “She once steered the ship through a gale while I was down in the cabin, laid up with stomach flu.”

“Oh, it was just a little breeze,” Sissy said.

Paul raised his brows at her. “Let's just say that, one of the times I woke up, I was resting comfortably on the wall instead of the bunk.”

Michael suddenly realized that Angus hadn't called. He checked his cell phone but saw no messages. “Thanks for the story. I should probably get back to the house.” He found a business card and gave it to Sissy.

Reynaldo rose as if to accompany him, then sat back down, saying, “I will stay a little longer.”

“Sure. If I see Doreene, I'll tell her you ran into some friends.”

*   *   *

Angus's phone rang while he and Suki were still watching Maureene and Enrico from their place behind the bush. He fumbled the phone out of his pocket and silenced the ring. “Just a sec,” he whispered, looking nervously at Maureene's window. Inside, she and Enrico talked on.

Angus crept farther into the woods, until he could barely make out Suki and the lighted window beyond. “Hello?” he whispered.

“What's going on?” Michael asked. “Where are you?”

“Outside Maureene's cottage, with Suki. Maureene is in there with Enrico. Apparently they're old friends. Maybe more than friends.”

“Interesting!”

“Isn't it? We should probably leave before he comes out. Where are you?”

“Downtown, by one of the piers. Reynaldo ran into some boating buddies. I got a reasonably local ghost-ship story.”

“Good work. Listen, we'll meet you back at the house, all right?” Angus looked toward where he thought Suki was. “Bloody hell, I can't see the cottage anymore. Hold on.” He pointed his phone at the ground, using the light to check for things that might trip him, but the ground at his feet appeared to have been swept clean of leaves. In addition, several long gouges marked the soil next to the nearest tree. He put the phone to his ear. “Michael? What was it Lupita said she saw out in the woods?”

“Spirits of the dead, crawling across the ground.”

Angus stared at the gouges. “Right. See you back at the house.”

*   *   *

When Michael returned to the house, he found Angus in Suki's room, looking over her shoulder while she uploaded photos of Enrico and Maureene to her laptop.

Michael shut the bedroom door and joined them in looking at pictures. “Those two look cozy.”

Angus nodded. “Maureene hugged Enrico like she hadn't seen him in years. They were still talking when we left.”

“I know it's a long shot,” Michael said, “but do you think he's the mystery father of Maureene's daughter?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” Suki said. “If only Maureene had brought out a box of baby pictures while they were sitting there.”

Angus took a seat on the bed and leaned back on his arms. “If Enrico and Maureene are such great friends, why did he tell us he wanted to speak to Doreene?”

Suki clicked to a new picture. “Oh, Doreene knows him, too. I could tell she recognized him. Why else would she delete the photo?”

Michael bent to get a better view of the laptop, where Suki zoomed in on the lighted window of Maureene's cottage. “She looks so happy. I didn't see much resemblance between the sisters before, but now it's clear.”

Suki cropped the photo and saved the new version. “Show him the picture you took, Angus.”

“Right.” Angus stood and dug in his pocket for his phone. “It was while I was talking to you, Michael, that I looked down and saw this.”

Michael squinted at the phone's screen, which showed a rather overexposed flash photo. “Looks like dirt, and the base of a tree. What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“If you'll notice, there are no leaves on the ground in that area.” Angus pointed. “Also, see those two grooves in the dirt?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Those could be the marks left by a skeleton dragging itself across the ground, scraping leaves as it went.
Spirits of the dead,
Michael.”

“Wouldn't there be ten grooves, in that case?” Michael asked. “One for each skeletal finger?”

Angus made an impatient noise and put his phone away. “Maybe it's missing some finger bones, or these are from its knees.”

“Pelvis,” Suki said absently. “That's the heaviest, and it has sharp edges.”

“Regardless,” Angus said, “I clipped a pen to the nearest bush. We'll go back tomorrow and take pictures during the day. I hope we can find the place. It was a nice pen.”

“We should get some of that stretchy plastic ribbon people tie around trees and stuff,” Michael said. “Wonder what that's called?”

“Flagging tape,” Suki said.

“Let me guess, you dated a hunter once,” Michael said.

“Surveyor.”

Angus looked at his watch. “I'm going to my room. We did some good work today.”

Michael followed him out. “Wait until you hear this shipwreck story, Angus. It's really tragic.”

“I look forward to it.”

Suki got up and shut the door behind them. Then she went back to her laptop and pulled up one of the best photos of Enrico, where he had momentarily turned toward the window. “I swear I've seen this guy somewhere else,” she muttered.

 

Eleven

Angus woke sometime in the middle of the night. He lay in the dark room with the vague notion that he had heard a thump. Then he got out of bed and went to the window.

The sky was dark, probably with clouds, and showed no hint of moon or stars. The outline of a tree, black and very still, showed against a neighbor's security light.

Angus felt for the window's latch and opened it. Cool, damp air chilled his face and hands, but there was no wind. He closed the window and went to his bedroom door, where he briefly looked into the hall. Yawning, he closed the door and went back to bed.

*   *   *

The next time Angus woke, it was to the sound of a woman's scream, high and shrill. He froze for a moment, then threw back the covers and found his boxer shorts on the floor. From the amount of light coming through the windows, he guessed it was about six in the morning.

The scream came again, and he heard the skitter of Gigi's claws as she ran past his door and down the hallway. She began to bark.

Angus left his bedroom and trotted down the hall. Gigi stood upright against Doreene's door, barking. In the pauses between, Angus heard Reynaldo's voice, alarmed and questioning.

Angus pounded on Doreene's door. “Is everything all right? Do you need me to call nine-one-one?”

The door opened a bit, and Reynaldo stood there, in much briefer and tighter underwear than Angus's. “I don't think so, no.” An overhead light showed that his lithe body was corded with muscle.

Angus felt the hardwood floor vibrate with footsteps and turned to see Suki, wearing a silk robe patterned with peacock feathers and holding a camera in her hand.

Michael was close behind, wearing jeans and glasses, his chest bare. “What's going on?”

Suki looked Reynaldo up and down and gave a barely audible whistle.

He smiled shyly.

The door jerked open farther and Doreene stood there, wearing a long, elegant nightgown of cream satin and clutching a wadded tissue in her hand. “Did you do this?!” She shook the tissue at them, panting with rage.

“I don't think so, but what are we talking about?” Angus asked cautiously.

She flung the door open and gestured to the room. “This!”

Dead leaves littered the carpet. At first Angus thought some of them had somehow stuck to the wall, but then he realized that those were Washington's infamous banana slugs. They moved sluggishly across the floor, their glistening trails crisscrossing the hardwood floor and leaving strands of mucus on the Oriental rug. One hung halfway off the shade of a bedside lamp, its questing horns waving gently.

Gigi ran around the room, sniffing busily.

Doreene leaned against the door frame. “I got up to go to the bathroom and
stepped
on one.” She opened the hand that clutched the tissue and they saw the sad little corpse.

Suki raised her upper lip. “Ew.”

Lupita came running down the hall, a terry cloth robe cinched around her waist. “What happened?”

The others stood aside so she could see.

Doreene made an angry gesture around the room. “Get a bucket and a broom or something,” she snapped.

Lupita's eyes widened. “Spirits of the dead,” she whispered.

“Don't be stupid.” Doreene gave her a little push. “Go on, get something to clean this up.”

As Lupita scurried away, Doreene turned back to Angus with a glare. “Admit it. You did this to drum up interest in your little magazine.”

Angus drew himself up. “I assure you, we did nothing of the sort.”